Chandrika’s;chance to answer her critics and prove

Chandrika Subashini Rasnayake, the 400m champion from Air Force, is once again in the spotlight as she goes into the starting blocks at the 21st Asian Championship in Wuhan, China tomorrow.
Rasnayake finished just outside a medal in last year’s Asian Games shattering the hopes of the country, but she clocked her second best time ever (52.47 seconds) at Incheon.
After finishing as leader of Asian athletes with 52.67 seconds performance during the 20th Commonwealth Games 2014 in Glasgow, Rasnayake was one of two medal hopefuls for Sri Lanka in athletics during the Asian Games, but the Nigerian expats Kemi Adekoya of Bahrain together with an unexpected improvement of Vietnam’s teenager Quach Thị Lan and Indian Raju Poovamma resulted in Rasanayake being out of a podium finish .
At the last edition of the Asian Championship in Pune back in 2013, Rasnayake again went as one of the favourites for the title. But illness and prior injuries resulted in her finishing in last position in the finals, while her best time was 54.16 second during the championship two years ago.
Rasnayake hailing from Senanayake CC Madampe trained under Parakrama Bandara when she clocked her personal best of 52.36 seconds in 2008 in Thailand, which is a feat she is yet to repeat even six years after that. Rasnayake now trains under famous sprinting coaches Sunil and Badra Gunawardene and is the one of the four athletes coached by the pair in the team, while men’s 4X100m relay team members, Shehan Ambepitiya , Mohommad Ashroff and Mohomad Rajaskhan are the others.
Rasnayake was considered as one of the country’s top athletes by the Athletics Association of Sri Lanka (AASL) at the end of last year after the failure of Javelin Queen Nadeeka Lakmali at the Asian Games, and was granted an Olympic scholarship by IOC of 1,000 USD per month, which later became a much talked about point, as the country’s two marathoners who achieved qualification for the Rio Olympics wasn’t included in the scholarship list.
Rasnayake will have another chance to prove her worth tomorrow at Wuhan, but her recent form doesn’t support any great expectations. Even though she managed to win the selection trials for the event, her performance was an unimpressive 55.03 seconds in the finals. To top that her recent marriage may have shaken her focus a bit, as well as the country’s hopes which she has to shoulder.
Her chance to answer her critics and prove she is on track to Rio qualification lies tomorrow at Wuhan, when she will be on the blocks in the women’s 400m dash at 1:40 p.m. Sri Lanka time.